Letter: Remove voucher school funding from budget

Are you ready for an independent voucher school to appear in your neighborhood? The budget bill being considered now will permit that to happen. Independent voucher schools do not have to accept students with special needs. Alternatively, they can accept students with special needs and the money that goes with them. Then, after the third Friday in September, the accounting deadline, tell the special needs student that the independent voucher school cannot meet his or her needs. The independent voucher school keeps the money and the special needs student must be admitted to the public school but without the money that already has been given to the independent voucher school.

Students in taxpayer-funded independent voucher schools do not perform better than their peers in neighborhood public schools. Independent voucher schools are not subject to the open records laws. Independent voucher school are not required by state law to conduct criminal background checks on prospective employees nor are they required to employ licensed personnel.

The general state aid per pupil received by 80 percent of public schools in Wisconsin is less than the amount about 24,500 students can receive to attend voucher schools. In Wisconsin, which has a long tradition of fairness in public policy, this preference for voucher schools funded by public tax money just does not measure up to our expectations.

Please contact your legislators to ask them to not fund voucher schools or, at the very least, to pull the matter of funding voucher schools out of the budget bill so it can be debated separately.

Elbert J. Rackow

Stevens Point

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Email this article

Letter: Remove voucher school funding from budget

Are you ready for an independent voucher school to appear in your neighborhood? The budget bill being considered now will permit that to happen. Independent voucher schools do not have to accept

A link to this page will be included in your message.

Join Our Team!

If you are interested in working for an innovative media company, you can learn more by visiting: